Earlier this month, 200,000 citizens of the European Union demonstrated in Lisbon, Portugal, during the latest EU summit. Their beef was against the idea of EU citizens being denied any say in the process of the Union’s agreeing a revision of the much-touted European Constitution in its new guise as the EU reform treaty.

Yet again, the EU is showing a determination to ride roughshod over public opinion in order to impose its will on the European public.

Though the Lisbon demonstration was the largest to take place in the Portuguese capital for 20 years, it was ignored by the press. You simply did not hear about it.

That’s a startling demonstration of the power that this European monolith, the EU, already possesses to control media and thus public opinion. As Thomas Rupp, the coordinator of the European Referendum Campaign, observed of the EU leaders gathered in Lisbon, “They boasted that they have managed to get over an institutional crisis, but in fact they just increased the EU’s democratic crisis by completely avoiding the citizens. And obviously you should not count too much on the mainstream media to do anything about it” (EU Observer,October 23).

This emerging economic and political titan has a record of railroading its treaties and regulations through the institutions of its own creation—institutions designed to impose the EU will over and above the sovereign rights of its member nation states. The list of regulations it now enforces on its 27 member nations, in many cases trumping those nations’ own sovereign laws, currently runs to 90,000 pages!

In the past, Ireland, France and the Netherlands have all, in principle, rejected the EU constitution via public referenda. The British governments of the day have been scared out of their wits by the prospect of testing the EU constitution by the same democratic method, knowing full well that polls indicate upward of 70 percent of the British people do not support it.

The term “democracy,” to the bureaucrats of Brussels, simply has the same meaning as it has in Moscow or Beijing. The European Union is the new tyrant of the Continent.

Thankfully, though it be late—far too late, if we were only to know the truth—voices both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly crying out in alarm over what is building in Europe.

In the past, the voices have been very few indeed that sought to sound an alarm at what they perceived as a grave danger emerging via the undemocratic processes of the EU. We have quoted a number of them over the years. Most have been British—such keen observers of the European scene as British political economist Rodney Atkinson, that great British patriot Norris McWhirter, authors Adrian Hilton, John Laughland, Bernard Connolly et al. Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, those analysts who clearly see what is happening in Europe today for what it really is have been few and far between.

Brian Connell, who authored A Watcher on the Rhine back in 1957, attempted to warn Americans of the dangers they would face by endorsing the concept of a united Europe. More recently, the Washington Post’s former London bureau chief, T.R. Reid, has become quite vocal in trying to educate Americans as to the new superpower that threatens U.S. dominance. His most comprehensive effort, the book The United States of Europe, was published in 2004.

But suddenly, a rash of commentary is coming from sources both sides of the Atlantic decrying the manner in which this imperial European Union is forcing its will upon the European populace and even beyond. In the business world, the cowering of corporate giant Microsoft before the high and mighty European regulator has set alarm bells ringing among corporate moguls, as the prospect of the EU becoming the chief regulator of global business starts to sink in.

This latest EU summit has run true to the history of such events. As the Economist mused, “Eurocrats like to talk about building Europe ‘step by step.’ Critics accuse Brussels of slicing away national sovereignty, treaty by treaty” (October 25).

What is the real impact of this latest in the series of treaties that has governed the evolution of this European monolith to this point? It is but the clone of the rejected European Constitution, under a different name, with some revolutionary clauses of imperialistic nature endorsed.

The treaty creates the new post of president of the European Council, who will host four or more EU summits per year. In addition, the treaty allows for the appointment of an EU foreign minister to represent the Union in its international relations with the rest of the global community and to represent the EU within international entities such as the United Nations.

The treaty also allows for nations desiring greater defense cooperation to proceed to raise the level of cooperation among themselves. Added to these changes is a shrinkage of the upper layer of political leaders within the European Commission, currently headed by José Manuel Barroso.

What does all this mean to the citizens of EU member nations?

It means that, without any appeal to the electorates of any of the EU’s 27 member nations, they will become part of an imperial Europe, with their most powerful representation on the international scene not being from the foreign ministries and diplomatic corps of their national governments, but through a separate EU foreign office, backed by a separate EU corps of diplomats, who may counter any foreign-policy initiatives that any EU member nation may wish to promulgate themselves as an individual nation. This reflects a clear policy of imperialism crafted by EU technocrats.

The history of Europe as an imperial power is one of the great blots on the entire history of man. Imperial Europe’s history is one of bloodletting on a grand scale, consummating in the 20th century in the two most terrible wars of all. How is it then that the world just stands by and lets the prospect of this horror evolve before its eyes with barely a whimper of concern?

The European Council on Foreign Relations released results of a survey last week that ought to alarm every keen watcher of European developments. Commenting on the results of that survey, EU Observer noted, “Citizens worldwide prefer ‘soft power’ in international affairs rather than military might, and the EU appears to be the political actor whose role is most respected, a new survey suggests.

“In the poll, released by new think tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations, more than one third of the respondents (35 percent) said they see an increased EU power as a central element needed to develop a better world” (October 25).

Yet the paradox here, as the think tank’s executive director, Mark Leonard, and board member Ivan Krastev commented, is that “It is striking that a continent with a military budget second only to the United States, and the biggest number of peace-keeping forces serving in the world, seems to be perceived as a non-military power” (ibid.).

Back when Europe lay largely in ashes at the close of World War ii, there was one lone voice that cried out in warning at the Allied nations’ efforts to promote the construction of a unified Europe. Herbert W. Armstrong, his mind opened to the true meaning of biblical prophecy, declared that such an entity as we now see before our very eyes, yet again, as it has so often in the past—imperial Europe—would arise out of the ashes of war to stride across the world as a global superpower. And he pointed to the dangers that imperial power would pose to the English-speaking peoples in particular.

Few listened.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and the hens are clucking in startled fashion.

As Herbert W. Armstrong declared, this time the leading power in Europe, Germany, has learned the lesson that a European empire is best not created by war. It is best created, like the British Empire of the past, by trade. Once that economic empire is consolidated into a political entity, overlaid culturally by a collective spiritual ideology—a state religion—then and only then should a policy of military imperialism be imposed.

Sixty years of documented history attest to the prescience of Herbert W. Armstrong’s observations.

Led by Germany, in tandem with France and influenced by Rome, this European conglomerate has grown from a Common Market, via economic imperialism, into a political European Union about to elect its own president and appoint its own foreign service. Economic imperialism has morphed into political imperialism.

How will the economic and political interests of this new “United States of Europe” be secured and defended? It has the capacity to support a combined military force with a collective defense budget second only to that other United States, the United States of America! And its combined forces are deployed across more theaters of conflict, in “peace-keeping” mode, than any other international entity! Given some attention to organization—a natural gift of our German friends—that combined military force is already capable of defending the interests of the EU empire, more particularly so now that France has a president willing to share that nation’s nuclear capability with its German partner!

This situation is, in fact, destined to have far graver consequences upon the U.S. and its allies than Iraq and Afghanistan combined is presently having on the U.S. and its allies’ economies. In fact, it is destined to soon overtake the U.S. and its English-speaking allies in terms of economic impact, political influence and military might—believe it or not!

Yes, the more astute pundits are now coming out of the woodwork decrying the threats posed by imperialist Europe. But it’s all too late. The barn door has been left open by the victors in the last European-instigated war, the horse has bolted and there’s no stopping it.

The best we can hope for now is—in fact—the greatest of all hopes.

Hope, and pray, for the day to soon come when the final revival of that old Holy Roman Empire will be quashed, never again to raise its bloody fist over mankind. Its global power is about to be replaced by a supreme, universal Power in fulfillment of Isaiah’s great prophecy: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:6-7).